Republicans vow to fight feds over voter laws

ASSOCIATED PRESS

October 1, 2013 12:01 AM

FILE - In a June 30, 1982 file photo, President Ronald Reagan signs an expansion of the 1965 Voting Rights Bill during a ceremony in the East Room of the White House. Standing from left: Sens. Robert Dole (R-Kan.); Howard Baker (R-Tenn.); Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.); and Dennis DeConcini (D-Ariz.) The Justice Department will sue the state of North Carolina for alleged racial discrimination over tough new voting rules, the latest effort by the Obama administration to fight back against a Supreme Court decision that struck down the most powerful part of the landmark Voting Rights Act and freed southern states from strict federal oversight of their elections. North Carolina has a new law scaling back the period for early voting and imposing stringent voter identification requirements. It is among at least five Southern states adopting stricter voter ID and other election laws. (AP Photo, File)AP

ASSOCIATED PRESS

October 1, 2013 12:01 AM

RALEIGH, N.C. -- North Carolina's Republican governor is vowing to fight a lawsuit by the U.S. Justice Department challenging the state's tough new elections law on the grounds it disproportionately excludes minority voters.

Gov. Pat McCrory said Monday he has hired a private lawyer to help defend the new law from what he suggested was a partisan attack by President Barack Obama's Democratic administration.

"I believe the federal government action is an overreach and without merit," McCrory said at a brief news conference during which he took no questions. "I firmly believe we have done the right thing. I believe this is good law."

North Carolina's new law cuts early voting by a week, ends same-day voter registration and includes a stringent photo ID requirement. The measure also eliminated a popular high school civics program that encouraged students to register to vote in advance of their 18th birthdays.

More than 70 percent of black Americans in North Carolina voted early in the past two presidential elections.